Securing Reform? Power Sharing and Civil-Security ...asq.africa.ufl.edu/files/Noyes-V13Is4.pdf · expansive power-sharing literature examine outcomes other than reignited conflict—such

African Studies Quarterly | Volume 13, Issue 4 | Winter 2013

Alexander Noyes is a research associate in the Africa Program at the Institute for Defense Analyses.

The research for this paper was conducted while the author was a graduate student at the African

Studies Centre at Oxford University. He has conducted fieldwork in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and

Angola, and his work has appeared in various publications. The author would like to thank Nic

Cheeseman for his indispensable guidance throughout, David Anderson and Dorina Bekoe for their

advice and comments, Gypsy Moore for her editing prowess, two anonymous reviewers for their

helpful feedback, and the dozens of individuals interviewed for their generosity and candor. All

remaining errors are his own. http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v13/v13i4a2.pdf

© University of Florida Board of Trustees, a public corporation of the State of Florida; permission is hereby granted for

individuals to download articles for their own personal use. Published by the Center for African Studies, University of Florida.

ISSN: 2152-2448

Securing Reform? Power Sharing and Civil-Security

Relations in Kenya and Zimbabwe

ALEXANDER NOYES

Abstract: While international actors use power sharing to resolve a vast range of

conflicts in Africa and view state security reform as critical to achieving durable

peace, there is a distinct lack of studies that examine the relationship between power

sharing and security sector reform. This paper argues that, in the cases of Kenya and

Zimbabwe, two main factors have determined the divergent security reform

outcomes of the respective power-sharing governments: the degree of political

influence within the security sector and the strength of the security reform content of

the power-sharing agreement. In Zimbabwe, the rise of “security politics” gave the

security sector a high degree of political influence, which, combined with weak

security reform content in the power-sharing deal, resulted in little movement on

security reforms. In Kenya, the state’s loss over the control of violence gave rise to the

practice of “militia politics,” leading to a low degree of political influence in the

security sector, which, when coupled with strong security reform content, facilitated

considerable—albeit halting and not fully implemented—progress on state security

reforms.

Introduction

Power sharing is increasingly used by the international community as a tool to end conflict,

from Bosnia to Afghanistan to Liberia. In recent years, the use of power-sharing

governments to settle conflict has been particularly preponderant in sub-Saharan Africa.1

From 1999 to 2009, power-sharing agreements, also known as unity governments, were

utilized in eighteen African countries to resolve a multiplicity of conflicts, ranging from

high-intensity civil war, as in Sudan, to lower-grade electoral violence, as in Kenya and

Zimbabwe.2 In some cases, as in the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar in 2010, unity

governments have been agreed to even before elections take place in an effort to defuse poll

tensions. In many of these conflicts, the security apparatus of the state has played a

prominent role. In Kenya and Zimbabwe, for instance, the security sector was involved in—

if not directly responsible for—widespread political violence surrounding both countries’

disputed elections in 2007-08, with the Kenyan police implicated in 36 percent of all fatalities

and the security apparatus in Zimbabwe responsible for an overwhelming majority of the

violence.3

28 | Noyes

African Studies Quarterly | Volume 13, Issue 4| Winter 2013

http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v13/v13i4a2.pdf

In such cases, the depoliticization and reform of the state security sector is crucial to

achieving a durable peace, improving governance, and aiding democratic consolidation. If

reforms are not undertaken during the tenure of unity governments, any short-term gains

secured by a power-sharing deal will likely prove fleeting, as security officials will remain as

political instruments or continue to employ their influence in the political sphere. Although

political polarization and other conflict legacies can stifle reform, power-sharing

governments and the conflicts from which they emerge have the potential to generate

propitious opportunities for security sector reform (SSR), particularly where the security

apparatus has been involved in political violence. As the deleterious role of the security

sector becomes apparent, domestic, regional, and international actors often urge parties to

include SSR in the negotiated political agreements and pressure unity governments to enact

security reforms and other institutional changes that impact security governance, such as

constitutional review processes.

Despite this link between power sharing and security reform, there is a paucity of

academic studies that examine the relationship between the two phenomena. Drawing on

the cases of Kenya and Zimbabwe, this paper seeks to fill this gap and better understand

when unity governments formed in contexts of low-grade electoral violence in Africa will

facilitate or forestall state SSR. To varying degrees, the power-sharing agreements in Kenya

and Zimbabwe recognized the need for security reform. To what extent have the unity

governments realized these reforms? What factors have determined whether or not they

progressed? To what degree are the findings from Kenya and Zimbabwe generalizable?

This paper has three main aims. First, it discusses the few studies in the literature that

link power sharing and security reform, presents the paper’s two hypotheses, and outlines

the methods used in the study. Second, it demonstrates how the historical role of security

forces and their balance of power with civilian actors shapes the prospects for SSR. In

Zimbabwe, the rise of “security politics” gave the security sector a high degree of political

influence, which prevented the inclusion of strong SSR content in the power-sharing

agreement. This combination of high political influence and weak SSR content has resulted

in little movement on state security reforms in Zimbabwe. In Kenya, a “diffusion of

violence” over the past two decades gave rise to the practice of “militia politics,” which led

to a low degree of political influence in the security sector and allowed strong SSR content in

the agreement.4 In contrast to Zimbabwe, low political influence and strong SSR content

have facilitated considerable, if slow and incomplete, progress on state SSR in Kenya. In

conclusion, the paper discusses the implications of the findings and suggests avenues for

further research on the topic.

Power to Reform?

Power sharing has come to signify a variety of institutional arrangements, ranging from

transitional and longer-term coalition governments to more general ideas of federalism.

Lijphart’s classic theory of consociational democracy is a prime example of a more

permanent, institutionalized power-sharing formula, postulating that there are four

necessary elements to effective power sharing in plural societies: grand coalition, group

autonomy, proportional representation, and minority veto.5 This paper focuses on

transitional post-conflict power-sharing governments with significant reform agendas that

arise out of negotiated political agreements in the wake of low-grade electoral violence. In

Securing Reform? | 29



broad terms, power-sharing arrangements can be defined as “formal institutions that

distribute decision-making rights within the state and define decision-making procedures.”6

In the cases of Kenya and Zimbabwe in 2008-09, decision-making positions throughout

the executive were allocated to the major parties to the conflicts and comprehensive reform

agendas were outlined in the respective political agreements. In Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, the

incumbent President and leader of the Party of National Unity (PNU), retained the

presidency, while Raila Odinga, leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM),

assumed the freshly created post of Prime Minister. Kibaki maintained control over the

coercive apparatus while Odinga had to settle for ministries less crucial to the exercise of

state power. In Zimbabwe, the incumbent President and leader of the Zimbabwe African

National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), Robert Mugabe, maintained the presidency,

while the leader of the larger faction of the two Movement for Democratic Change

groupings (MDC-T), Morgan Tsvangirai, filled the new position of Prime Minister. Akin to

the deal in Kenya, Mugabe maintained an iron grip on the state’s coercive capacity.

Within the international community, the concept of SSR is understood as efforts to

depoliticize, professionalize, and establish democratic civilian oversight of the state security

apparatus in post-conflict and democratizing states.7 Following Toft, this paper uses the

term “security sector” to refer only to “core” security institutions—those authorized to use

coercive force—namely the military, police, and intelligence agencies.8

As noted, there is a distinct lack of studies that link power sharing and security reform.

Hartzell and Hoddie analyze military power-sharing arrangements, emphasizing their

importance to the durability of civil war settlements.9 However, military power sharing is

distinct from SSR, with different processes and intended outcomes (military power-sharing

is most often used to integrate former warring combatants under one command). Moreover,

Hartzell and Hoddie do not examine the relationship between political power sharing and

military power sharing or cases of lower-grade conflict. Toft’s theory of “mutual benefit and

mutual harm” makes an important linkage between peace settlements, SSR, and the

durability of peace, but does not investigate the relationship between power-sharing

government and SSR and also focuses exclusively on cases of civil war.10 Cheeseman

connects security reform and power sharing by using SSR as one criterion to judge the likely

outcomes of unity governments.11 However, he does not address the actual content of the

political agreements and considers power-sharing governments in contexts of electoral

deadlock and cases of post-civil war together, even though the two types of conflicts, as he

notes in other work, can have vastly different underlying causes, dynamics, and

consequences.12

In addition to the overall failure to link the two subjects, there are significant lacunae

within the discrete power-sharing and security reform literatures. Few studies within the

expansive power-sharing literature examine outcomes other than reignited conflict—such as

reform processes—or the utility of using power-sharing models to settle low-grade conflict.13

An exception to both trends is Cheeseman and Tendi’s 2010 study, which, through a veto-

player framework, examines the internal dynamics of power-sharing governments in cases

of disputed elections and argues that such governments serve “to postpone conflict, rather

than resolve it.”14 Other notable exceptions include Bekoe’s study on the impact of “post-

election political agreements” in Togo and Zanzibar and LeVan’s analysis of the unique

challenges presented by “low-conflict” cases of power sharing in Africa.15

On the other hand, the security reform literature has overwhelmingly focused on the

conceptual, technical, and international aspects of reform, generally failing to empirically

30 | Noyes



examine how domestic political conditions drive or impede such processes, a trend Chanaa

has termed a “conceptual-contextual divide.”16 Hills is an exception, as her empirical work

reveals the fundamentally politicized role of African police institutions.17 Another important

exception to this tendency is Cawthra and Luckham, who argue that the nature of the state

and the circumstances from which a country is transitioning are crucial to understanding

whether SSR is likely to be successful.18 By focusing on cases of low-grade electoral conflict

and the conditions under which SSR is likely to progress, this study seeks to fill the above

gaps in both bodies of literature and contribute to their linkage.

Methodology

What are the most important factors determining the SSR outcomes of unity governments

formed in contexts of low-grade electoral conflict? Building on Cheeseman and Tendi’s veto-

player framework, Cawthra and Luckham’s notion of how the nature of the state influences

SSR outcomes, and Hartzell and Hoddie’s focus on the impact of different power-sharing

devices in the agreement, this study proposes two hypotheses.19

First, a high degree of political influence within the security sector translates into less

SSR. This inverse relationship obtains because in countries where the security sector

possesses great political influence, the civil-security relationship tends to be symbiotic, i.e.

the former ruling party relies on the security apparatus to remain in power, while security

leaders are rewarded with decision-making power and politico-economic interests. In this

scenario, security sector leaders and former incumbents collude to stymie security reforms

that threaten their interests. In cases where political influence is low, security actors are

unable to block reforms.

Second, stronger SSR content in the formal power-sharing agreement translates into

more SSR. This positive relationship obtains because in cases where agreements contain

strong SSR components, domestic, regional, and international actors can use this framework

to push reforms forward by pressuring political players within the unity government to

uphold their promises. In cases where the SSR content is weak, such actors cannot leverage

the agreement to advance SSR.

The security reform outcomes of each case are measured on a scale of low to high

according to significant progress made by the unity governments on five criteria essential to

SSR: constitutional changes in security governance, security reform legislation, commissions

investigating security sector complicity in political violence, prosecutions of security

officials, and personnel changes of security leaders. It could be argued that certain criterion

are more important than others or operate on different levels and could be broken into

separate units of analysis (content vs. process vs. implementation, etc.). While not a perfect

measure, taken together, the five criteria provide a proximate gauge of overall SSR progress.

To measure the degree of political influence of the security sector across cases, this

study analyzed, through background research and consultations with country experts, the

prevalence of serving or retired security leaders in two bodies that are key to political

power: the cabinet and the top leadership positions of the major parties. A value of 20

percent or below was deemed a low degree of political influence, 21-40 medium, 41-60 high,

61-80 extremely high, and 81 and above a security regime. Again, this is in no way a perfect

measure, as it fails to capture the important informal ways security actors wield their

political influence, as is demonstrated below. However, the proxy does serve as an indicator

to gauge formal levels of influence at the highest political ranks.




The strength of the SSR content of the political agreement is measured on a scale of

weak to strong according to the inclusion or exclusion of six critical SSR criteria within the

text of the agreement: security reforms in constitutional reform processes, review of security

legislation, commissions, accountability mechanisms, insistence that security actors remain

apolitical, and a timeframe to achieve such steps. Again, it could be argued that certain

criterion are more important than others or operate on different levels. As a cluster,

however, the six criteria provide a proximate measure of the strength of the SSR content of a

political agreement.

This study utilizes George and Bennett’s method of “structured, focused comparison.”20

The method is structured in the sense that data were systematically collected across cases

and is focused in that it investigates a “subclass” of the broader phenomena of both power

sharing and SSR, i.e. the phenomenon of SSR efforts under reform-oriented power-sharing

governments formed in contexts of low-grade electoral conflict. The study uses a multi-

method research strategy consisting of a combination of within-case and cross-case analysis.

Utilizing the method of “process-tracing,” the paper traces the degree of political influence

of the security sector and the strength of the SSR content of the political agreement through

the cases, identifying the steps that led to progress or obstruction of security reforms.21

The study draws on a range of both primary and secondary sources. Primary sources

include the text of the political agreements, constitutional changes, and security legislation.

To generate new empirical evidence and substantiate the existing primary and secondary

sources, I conducted interviews with individuals that either monitor or have been involved

with the two unity governments and SSR efforts in Kenya and Zimbabwe. During the course

of my field research in March and April 2011, I conducted thirty-two structured interviews,

with the majority of them taking place in Harare and Nairobi. My interviewees comprised

government and ex-government officials—including several current Ministers and Members

of Parliament, leading civil society figures, international actors, academics, policy experts,

and practitioners. Although twenty-one of my respondents gave consent to go on-the-

record, I have anonymized a number of interviewees to protect them from possible negative

consequences. Due to the political sensitivity of SSR processes, a minimal amount of public

material is available on the study topic. As such, the interviews with government actors in

Zimbabwe and Kenya proved indispensable to the analysis.

The structured comparison method requires the researcher to select a small number of

countries to compare. A limited number of existing cases fit the three essential criteria of the

study: a transitional power-sharing government in Africa with a comprehensive reform

agenda that arose out of low-grade election-related violence and was formed at least three

years prior to the time of writing, a time horizon that is necessary to allow for sufficient time

to have elapsed in order to measure progress (or lack thereof) toward SSR; security sector

complicity in the violence; and recognition of the need for SSR within the power-sharing

agreement. Kenya and Zimbabwe are the only two cases that unequivocally fulfill these

conditions. Additionally, the cases were selected because they feature acute variance in

levels of political influence and SSR content, as well as divergent SSR outcomes, making

them ideal cases to assess the validity of the hypotheses.

The case of Madagascar in 2009 nearly fits within the three-year horizon, but successive

efforts to form a unity government starting in 2009 broke down, with a coalition government

eventually formed in 2011. Moreover, the conflict did not arise out of electoral violence and

the political agreement did not contain state SSR provisions. It could be argued that Togo’s

power-sharing agreement in 2006 should be included, but it was a less comprehensive

32 | Noyes



agreement compared to Kenya and Zimbabwe that did not include an extensive reform

agenda aimed at resolving the underlying causes of the conflict.22 Zanzibar’s agreement in

2001 also did not include a comprehensive reform agenda and did not explicitly note the

need for SSR, while the 2010 agreement is not transitional, does not fit within the three-year

window, and did not emerge immediately in the wake of electoral violence, as the

government was formed prior to elections. Despite not fitting the exact criteria above and

laying beyond the scope of this study, the cases of Togo, Zanzibar, and Madagascar will be

interesting topics for future research and additional testing.23

The paper now tests the two hypotheses against the evidence from the cases of

Zimbabwe and Kenya. In Zimbabwe, Mugabe and ZANU-PF’s increased reliance on

security chiefs to maintain power led to a high degree of political influence within the

security sector and the rise of security politics, resulting in weak SSR content in the power-

sharing deal. Conversely, politicians in Kenya leaned primarily on militias and gangs—and

not the security sector—to retain power, leading to the practice of militia politics and a low

degree of political influence within the security sector, allowing strong SSR content in the

agreement.

Security Politics and SSR Content in Zimbabwe

Strong links and blurred lines between the polity and the security sector in Zimbabwe can

be traced back to the liberation war and through the early years of independence in the

1980s, the latter exemplified by the brutal Gukurahundi campaign undertaken by Mugabe

and security forces to suppress opposition in Matabeleland.24 Despite a long history of

politicization, the security apparatus has become increasingly and overtly political since

2000, when ZANU-PF’s political hegemony was first challenged by the MDC and Mugabe

began to rely heavily on the security sector to remain in power.25 The year 2000 marked the

launch of ZANU-PF’s “third chimurenga” (armed struggle), a narrative linking resistance to

conquest in the late 19th century to the liberation struggle in the 1970s and the land

expropriations of white-owned farms in 2000.26 The third chimurenga is framed in the

selectively nationalist language of “patriotic history,” which propagates a dichotomized

view of Zimbabwe’s past as a struggle between revolutionary “patriots” and “sell-outs,”

with the opposition dismissed as mere puppets of the West and ZANU-PF—the fathers of

independence—enjoying the right to “rule in perpetuity.”27

The MDC opposition movement—led by Tsvangirai—emerged in 1999 and dealt the

ruling party its first major defeat in the 2000 constitutional referendum. In the run-up to the

2002 elections, security chiefs publicly stated that they would not salute politicians who did

not possess liberation war credentials, i.e. the opposition, a sentiment that has subsequently

been repeated before every major election.28 Such statements were far from mere rhetoric, as

the Joint Operations Command (JOC)—the supreme security body comprising the leaders of

Zimbabwe’s military, police, Central Intelligence Organization, prison service, and high-

ranking ZANU-PF members—orchestrated violent campaigns to guarantee ZANU-PF’s

success in the 2000 and 2002 elections.29 This state-sponsored violence—carried out by a mix

of security officials, party youth militia, and self-styled “war veterans”—featured

prominently in subsequent elections, culminating in the 2008 crisis. After a month delay

following the 2008 elections, it was announced that Mugabe had lost the presidential contest

to Tsvangirai. However, since neither candidate purportedly won the necessary 50 percent, a

second round was scheduled for June.30 After the opposition’s initial success, a vicious cycle




of violence—code-named “Operation Makavhoterapapi?” (Where Did You Put Your Vote?)—

was unleashed by the JOC, leaving over two hundred dead and scores others missing or

jailed.31 The crackdown forced Tsvangirai to withdraw, giving Mugabe an illegitimate

victory that precipitated power-sharing negotiations headed by Thabo Mbeki under the

auspices of the South African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union

(AU).

As compensation for the security sector’s fealty, since 2000 Mugabe has increasingly

awarded security leaders with plum positions in the state and party structures. As a result,

the security apparatus has penetrated every aspect of the Zimbabwean state, from the

Reserve Bank to the Electoral Commission.32 Regarding the spread of the military into state

institutions, a Member of Parliament who sits on the Home Affairs and Defence

Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, asserted: “All institutions that are supposed to be totally

civilian are militarized.”33 Taking the point further, a local journalist and senior staff

member at a leading civil society organization stated that the military “has become

ubiquitous, it’s omnipresent, it’s everywhere. They occupy every sector of our society. You

go to the courts, you find the military, you go to parliament, you find the military, in the

executive, there is the military, in the state parastatals, government bodies, they are there.”34

The security sector is involved in the management of the economy as well, with

ostensibly civilian companies often times managed by those with ties to the security

apparatus.35 Security sector actors have also benefitted from their control over illicit sources

of revenue—such as the Marange diamond fields—and their involvement in the land

invasions that proliferated across the country in 2000 under Mugabe’s Fast Track land

reform program.36 The above illustrates the security sector’s immense influence within the

political arena, state institutions, and the wider political economy of Zimbabwe. The security

sector has become politicized while the political sphere has become securitized, giving rise

to the practice of security politics.

In an attempt to measure the security sector’s degree of formal political influence at the

time of writing, this study analyzed the prevalence of individuals with security backgrounds

in the cabinet and the top ranks of the two major parties. While only 6 percent of MDC-T

cabinet members and 8 percent of top party leadership positions are made up of serving or

ex-security sector personnel, approximately 43 percent of ZANU-PF cabinet members and 42

percent of the most senior-level positions within the supreme decision-making body, the

Politburo, comprise such individuals, giving Zimbabwe’s security sector a high degree of

influence in the political sphere and within ZANU-PF.

The protracted power-sharing negotiations headed by Mbeki resulted in the signing of

the Global Political Agreement (GPA) in September 2008 and the formation of the inclusive

government in early 2009. The GPA recognized the need for security reform, but to what

extent? As outlined above, the strength of the SSR content of the GPA is measured according

to the inclusion or exclusion of six criteria: constitutional reforms, legislation review,

commissions, accountability mechanisms, impartiality, and a timeframe. The agreement did

not require security reforms to be included in the constitutional review process, did not

mandate a review of extant security laws, and did not establish a commission of inquiry or

accountability mechanisms. Article 13 did note the need for state institutions to “remain

non-partisan and impartial,” while also calling for a new training curriculum for the security

forces.37 The agreement, however, provided no timeframe delineating when such limited

security reforms would be carried out. Based on these six criteria, it is clear that the SSR

content of the GPA must be deemed as weak.

34 | Noyes



Why were the actors who orchestrated the 2008 violence barely mentioned in the

agreement? The primary reason was the pervasiveness of security politics: as JOC leaders

participated in the power-sharing discussions, they wielded an effective veto over the

negotiations. As noted by the Guardian during the negotiations, “There can be no ‘success’ to

the talks without the security officials’ acquiescence.”38 Security leaders simply would not

allow meaningful security reforms on the negotiation agenda, resulting in opaque and

anemic SSR content in the GPA. A secondary contributing factor to the GPA’s weakness on

security reforms was the fact that Tsvangirai gave up on the idea of pursuing justice for

security leaders in the name of reconciliation and peace.39 While this strategy was no doubt

chosen in part because of the security chiefs’ political power and capability to thwart the

formation of the unity government, the concession lessened the impetus to include SSR

elements in the GPA.

Militia Politics and SSR Content in Kenya

Despite playing an influential role in the political sphere following a failed coup attempt in

1982, the military has largely remained outside of the political realm in Kenya.40 The police,

however, have a long history of politicization, a practice that intensified during the 1980s

and early 1990s when President Daniel arap Moi used the force to violently suppress

political dissent.41 After Kenya’s return to multiparty politics in 1991, Moi used gangs and

ethnically-based militias—aided by the police—to attack political opponents in the run-up to

the 1992 and 1997 elections.42 Moi, a Kalenjin, used “Kalenjin warrior” militias to displace

opposition supporters, mostly Kikuyu, Luo, and Luyha.43 By blurring the lines of

accountability, Moi’s use of privatized violence allowed him to use electoral tactics—such as

ethnic cleansing—that were out of bounds for the police.44 While Moi and the incumbent

party, the Kenyan African National Union, triumphed in the flawed 1992 and 1997 elections,

the victories came at a substantial cost in lives. In the militia-fuelled “ethnic clashes” that

surrounded both elections, 3,000 were killed and 300,000 displaced.45

Once Moi and his supporters utilized privatized violence in the 1990s, anti- and pro-

government gangs and militias proliferated over the next decade, with national and local

politicians often losing control of militias or simply discharging them after elections. Groups

including the feared Mungiki, the Sabaot Land Defense Force, the Taliban, the Bagdad Boys,

and Sungu Sungu emerged as powerful organizations or political militias for hire, many

running shakedown and protection rackets.46 The widespread use of militias by politicians

across the political spectrum—combined with extra-state groups becoming increasingly

involved in government functions as a response to policing failures in neglected rural areas

and Nairobi shantytowns—led to what Mueller terms a “diffusion of violence,” or as

characterized in this paper, the rise of militia politics.47 This informalization of violence,

meaning a process by which the state lost control over its monopoly on the use of force,

proved to be highly destabilizing for Kenya in the near and medium term.48

After Moi stepped down before the 2002 elections, a broad-based opposition coalition

won in a relatively free and fair poll. However, despite a brief period of public euphoria and

promises for democratic change by the incoming President Kibaki—including a security

sector reform and community policing program—the practice of militia politics went on

unabated, as outlined above. Additionally, Kibaki continued the Kenyan tradition of using

the police as political instruments, the most conspicuous example being when




Administration Police were deployed in plainclothes to disrupt polling stations in

opposition strongholds before the 2007 vote.49

Upon conclusion of an exceedingly close 2007 poll between Kibaki and the ODM

opposition party—led by Odinga—Kibaki declared victory and was hastily sworn in,

despite allegations of electoral fraud. Led by militias and gangs supported by political

patrons across political divides—with the involvement of the police a further complicating

factor—the disputed elections triggered several waves of ethnically-based decentralized

violence between opposition and government supporters, in which over 1,300 were killed

and more than 600,000 displaced.50 The two-month period of violence and political disorder

was ended by the signing of a power-sharing deal in February 2008 brokered by Kofi Annan

under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) and the AU’s Panel of Eminent African

Personalities.

Although the police have been heavily politicized in Kenya, the civil-police relationship

has remained unidirectional, i.e. politicians—namely the executive—have enjoyed

tremendous influence in the policing sphere, but the police have not amassed the political

power necessary to influence the political arena.51 What explains the supremacy of civilians

over the police? The most critical factor is that while politicians have continually

manipulated the police for political purposes, incumbents have not relied exclusively on the

police to remain in power. Politicians’ dependence on privatized violence meant that militias

and gangs, not the police, were largely responsible for securing electoral victories. In this

system of militia politics, politicians did not need to devolve decision-making power to the

police in order to win elections.

Additionally, politicians have relied on elite coalitions to ensure ballot success.52 This

inclusive political practice contributed to the one-sided civil-police relationship in two ways:

it further lessened political leaders’ reliance on the police to guarantee political power; and it

diminished opportunities for the police and politicians to build entrenched symbiotic

relations because politicians were constantly shifting alliances and positions within

government.

Again, in an attempt to measure the security sector’s degree of political influence in

Kenya at the time of writing, this paper analyzed the prevalence of individuals with security

backgrounds in the cabinet and leadership of the two major parties. The analysis found that

zero percent of PNU cabinet members and top party positions are made up of such

individuals, while zero percent of cabinet ministers and 6 percent of ODM’s top party

officials have security backgrounds, giving Kenya’s security sector a low degree of political

influence.

The nearly six-week negotiation process headed by Annan—the Kenya National

Dialogue and Reconciliation (KNDR)—produced the National Accord (NA) agreements,

which were divided into four agendas.53 The NA called for security reforms, but how

explicitly? The strength of the SSR content in the NA is measured against the six criteria

outlined above. Early in the negotiations, the parties signed an agreement stating that the

security forces must act in an apolitical manner. Once the agreements were finalized, agenda

four stipulated that an independent police commission was to be established in the

constitutional review process, while also requiring security laws to be updated to reflect

democratic norms. The Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence (CIPEV), known

as the Waki Commission, and the Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission, were also

grounded in the NA framework. While both bodies were authorized to investigate state

security involvement in the 2007-08 violence, neither established concrete accountability

36 | Noyes



mechanisms. Despite this failure, the NA did provide a demanding timetable to achieve the

delineated reforms.54 Based on the NA’s inclusion of the above SSR measures, it is clear that

the agreement’s SSR content must be deemed as strong.

While various factors helped determine the SSR content of the agreement, including the

disposition of the negotiators and external pressure, the most critical variable shaping the

SSR content of the NA was the lack of political influence within the security sector, namely

the police. Security leaders were not major players during negotiations, a further indicator of

their lack of political influence.55 The unidirectional civil-police relationship in Kenya

rendered politicians impervious to pressures from the security apparatus during

negotiations, allowing significant SSR content to be included in the agreement.

A secondary factor was the participation of civil society actors in the negotiation

process, which, contrary to some accounts, was quite robust.56 The majority of security

reforms in the NA are contained in agenda four, which outlined the institutional reforms

designed to resolve the underlying causes of the crisis. According to Samuel Mohochi, a

human rights lawyer, “If it had not been for the involvement of civil society in Kenya…you

would not have had agenda four.”57

Zimbabwe and Kenya’s different civil-military histories played an instrumental role in

shaping the SSR content of the two country’s political agreements and were central to the

way power sharing played out in both countries.

SSR Outcomes in Comparative Perspective

Since the formation of the two country’s unity governments, the high amount of political

influence within the security sector and the weak SSR content of the agreement have lead to

a low degree of SSR in Zimbabwe, while the low amount of political influence of the

police—in tandem with strong SSR content in the deal—have allowed a considerable, if

halting and not fully implemented, degree of progress on SSR in Kenya.

The security chiefs in Zimbabwe have used their abundant formal and informal political

influence to convince Mugabe to remain recalcitrant on the issue of SSR. Due to the

classified nature of national security discussions, it is difficult to assess precisely how such

influence has been wielded. It appears, however, that JOC meetings—which continue to be

convened on a regular basis—are the venue where security leaders have communicated

their vehement disapproval of SSR efforts. For example, in recent JOC meetings security

chiefs reportedly warned Mugabe not to submit to MDC and SADC requests to include SSR

on the agenda for a roadmap to upcoming elections.58 Shortly after these sessions in 2011,

Jacob Zuma, the head SADC negotiator, requested meetings with Zimbabwe’s security

leaders to discuss reforms, but ZANU-PF announced that the SADC team was prohibited

from meeting with security chiefs and that SSR would not be considered, arguing that

foreigners cannot intervene on matters of national security.59

The security apparatus has used its political influence to persuade Mugabe to reject

specific proposals, such as the disbanding of the JOC and the formation of a new intelligence

organization, as well as refuse to even discuss security reforms more generally.60 The latter

point is illustrated by Mugabe’s speech at ZANU-PF’s congress in late 2009, where he stated

that the party “shall not allow the security forces of Zimbabwe to be the subject of any

negotiations for the so-called security sector reforms...That is the most dependable force we

could ever have, it shall not be tampered with.”61 Such statements demonstrate how the

backgrounds and security ties of the party’s top leadership positions have profoundly




impacted the party’s decision-making, leading ZANU-PF to oppose security reforms to

protect their own and their political clients’ interests.

The weak SSR content of the GPA in Zimbabwe also played a crucial role in shaping

SSR outcomes, as it prevented domestic and international actors from coalescing around

specific reforms and applying pressure on the government. The failure of the GPA to

comprehensively address the practice of security politics has made broaching the subject of

SSR during the life of the unity government exponentially more difficult, exemplified by

Zuma’s struggles in 2011 to even discuss SSR. Since the GPA’s wording on SSR is vague, the

external guarantors—SADC and the AU—and domestic monitors—the Joint Monitoring and

Implementation Committee—have no concrete security reforms to guarantee or monitor.

Therefore, when ZANU-PF asserts that foreign powers cannot interfere on security matters,

SADC is unable to cite specific SSR guidelines in the GPA to refute such claims. A Minister,

Member of Parliament, and senior MDC-T official, asserted that the MDC has since

recognized its error: “With hindsight, we are beginning to realize and discover that we made

a mistake to actually just go there in our GPA without asking for some fundamental reform”

in the security apparatus.62

The continuation of security politics and the weakness of the SSR content sculpted the

unpromising security reform landscape in Zimbabwe, rendering the unity government’s

SSR efforts stillborn. As noted, movement on security reforms is measured according to

significant progress made on five criteria essential to SSR: constitutional changes, reform

legislation, government commissions, prosecutions, and personnel changes. From the

formation of the unity government through the time of writing, the unity government has

made halting progress toward crafting a new constitution, with some security reforms, such

as demands for impartiality, reportedly featuring in the current draft of the constitution

agreed to by all parties in January 2013.63 Although the current draft has not been released at

the time of writing this paper, previous contentious debate has focused on the inclusion of

the legislature in overseeing the security apparatus and term limits for security chiefs.64

While a constitutional referendum will take place in March 2013, it appears the new

constitution will include some form of SSR provisions. However, if Mugabe and ZANU-PF

have agreed to any SSR, the language is likely to have been watered down.

The unity government has passed one significant piece of security reform legislation,

the National Security Council (NSC) Bill. Passed in early 2009, the bill created the NSC, a

body intended to establish civilian control over security governance and disband the JOC.

However, the passed legislation only provides the body with the capacity to review security

policy, and, according to a senior official in the Office of the Prime Minister, the organ has

convened no more than a handful of times.65 When the NSC does meet, a Deputy Minister

and Member of Parliament contended, “They do precious nothing there.”66 Despite the

formation of the NSC, the JOC remains intact and the security apparatus continues to

function as it did prior to the unity government.67 In this manner, through informal parallel

institutions the security sphere remains highly politicized and able to wield political

influence.68 Although the passage of the NSC bill looked promising, Mugabe remains firmly

in control of the security apparatus, evidenced by the fact that the police have arrested over

a quarter of Mugabe’s opponents in parliament since the formation of the unity government

and reports that the military has been deployed to rural areas in order to again coerce local

populations into supporting ZANU-PF in upcoming elections in 2013.69

In May 2011 the government approved a bill that will operationalize the Human Rights

Commission. However, the bill mandates that the commission only investigate rights

38 | Noyes



violations that occurred after February 2009.70 As such, no commission has been tasked with

investigating the security sector’s role in political violence. The government has also failed

to hold security sector leaders accountable for political violence, either through prosecutions

or removal from their posts.71 Despite long-awaited progress on constitutional reform, based

on the five criteria examined above, the power-sharing government in Zimbabwe has

achieved a low degree of progress on SSR. Summing up the progress of SSR in Zimbabwe, a

senior official in the Office of the Prime Minister, stated: “There has not been any of it [SSR]

really. Anybody who says that there has been obviously does not live here.”72

In contrast to Zimbabwe, the lack of political influence of the security sector in Kenya,

namely the police, has allowed considerable, if sluggish, progress on security reforms since

the formation of the coalition government. The unidirectional nature of the civil-police

relationship, mainly caused by a reliance on militia politics, means that the police do not

possess the necessary political influence to stymie reform effectively. This is not for lack of

trying. Odour Ong’wen, Member of the Kenyan government’s Police Reforms

Implementation Committee (PRIC), stated: “The first major obstacle we are seeing as a

committee is the resistance from the very top [of the police hierarchy]…a staggering

majority are resisting.”73 According to Mutuma Ruteere, Director of the Centre for Human

Rights and Policy Studies, “there is almost zero commitment to change by the police.”74

Due to a lack of political influence, however, the police chiefs have been unable to veto

the current reform process. Hassan Omar Hassan, former Commissioner at the Kenya

National Commission on Human Rights, the government body, maintains that no “police

officer has the audacity to stand up to any member of the executive once given an

order…There is a lot of leverage that the executive asserts over the police.”75 Ruteere

seconded this sentiment, arguing that, despite the intransigence from the police leadership,

“They are being forced to change…The police find they have no choice, they have to show

the motions of reforming, even if they do not want to reform.”76

Again diverging from the Zimbabwe experience, the strong SSR content of the NA has

also been critical in advancing SSR in Kenya. As seen in Zimbabwe, the content of political

agreements set the parameters and shape the manner in which power-sharing governments

will be implemented and monitored. Domestic and international actors have leveraged the

SSR content in the NA to pressure and cajole members of the coalition government to

uphold their promises. Domestic pressure has been key in this regard. Hassan asserts that

the driving force behind reform has been “the work of the Kenyan people. We have a very

robust civil society…a charged citizenry in terms of calling government to account.”77 Tom

Kagwe, Member of the Board of the government’s Independent Policing Oversight

Authority and Deputy Director at the nongovernmental Kenya Human Rights Commission,

argued that civil society continued with the mediation team’s mission directly after the

latter’s departure: “When Annan withdrew, domestic pressure has come up…we have very

clear civil society institutions that have really pushed this agenda framework.”78 In this

fashion, domestic constituents have applied pressure on the coalition government from

below.

Concurrently, regional and international actors have applied pressure from above. The

guarantor to the NA—the AU Panel headed by Annan—has helped advance reforms

precisely because they have tangible reforms to guarantee. When progress has lagged on

implementation of institutional reforms, Annan has flown in and applied political pressure

to expedite the reform process.79 Manifold actors within the international community have

also used the NA framework to push security reforms, with the United States imposing




travel bans on officials obstructing reform, the United Kingdom monitoring progress on

police reforms, and the UN reiterating domestic calls for sweeping police reform.80

“The pressure from outside has definitely been a contributing factor” in advancing

reform, according to Kenneth Mpyisi, Director at the Institute for Security Studies-Nairobi.81

Haron Ndubi, Director of the nongovernmental organization Haki Focus and participant in

the Waki Commission, maintains that demands from the international sphere have been

effective in pushing reform because the international community “wields the kind of sword

that the government fears…Political as well as economic pressure.”82 The NA content set the

agenda for SSR in Kenya, guaranteeing that it would be discussed in the various forums and

monitoring reports that have proliferated since 2008. If strong SSR was not part of the NA,

security reforms would not be susceptible to such outside pressures.

As a result of the low political influence of the security sector and the strong SSR

framework in the NA, security reforms have advanced to a medium-high degree in Kenya,

but they have not yet been fully implemented. Again, movement on SSR is judged according

to progress made on the five criteria outlined above. In contrast to Zimbabwe, the coalition

government in Kenya moved quickly on constitutional reform and promulgated a new

constitution in August 2010 that incorporated meaningful changes to security governance,

including measures to end political interference and the creation of a police oversight

mechanism.83

The government has also made considerable progress on revamping security legislation.

The PRIC drafted five police reform bills in 2010, and in August 2011 parliament passed the

three most important ones, the National Police Service Bill, the National Police Service

Commission Bill, and the Independent Policing Oversight Authority Bill.84 The process of

translating these bills from paper to practice has been sluggish, as the National Police

Service Commission, which is mandated with preventing political manipulation, vetting

officers, overseeing a new training curriculum, and integrating the Kenya Police Service and

Administration Police under one command, was not sworn in until October 2012 due to

political disagreements at the highest levels. The Independent Policing Oversight Authority,

responsible for providing civilian oversight, investigating excessive use of force, and

handling complaints from the public, also did not begin work until November 2012.85

Despite delays, the passed legislation and subsequent establishment of the above institutions

have provided the legal framework and means to change fundamentally the structure,

leadership, and oversight mechanisms of the Kenyan police.

The Waki Commission, which addressed the politicization of the police and

investigated police involvement in the post-election violence, completed its work in 2008. As

the commission recommended, the government formed a panel to spearhead the police

reform process—the National Task Force on Police Reforms—which was succeeded by the

PRIC. Other recommendations have also been implemented, such as establishing

independent oversight of the police. While advancements have been made on the first three

out of five SSR criteria, as noted, implementation has lagged, in large part due to political

bickering and lack of political will.86 David Kimaiyo, who in December 2012 became the first

Inspector General of the police but was a Director in the Ministry of Internal Security when

interviewed in 2011, asserted, “The recommendations are there on paper…implementation

is a problem.”87

Akin to Zimbabwe, the government in Kenya has failed to try perpetrators of the post-

election violence, despite several attempts to form a special tribunal. This failure—caused by

anti-reform coalitions formed across political divides—prompted Annan to provide the

40 | Noyes



International Criminal Court (ICC) with the names of those suspected by the Waki

Commission of orchestrating the violence.88 Subsequently, the ICC charged six prominent

Kenyans—including the former police commissioner, Mohammed Hussein Ali—with crimes

against humanity. The charges against Ali were later dropped in March 2012.89 Despite

international efforts to prosecute Ali, no senior-level security prosecutions have taken place

domestically. This continuing police impunity, which has a long history in Kenya, is a

setback to the overall SSR process in Kenya.

Substantial personnel changes within the police leadership have been carried out. Ali

and his deputy were relieved of command in 2009, while a year later 143 senior officers were

rotated out of their positions nationwide.90 In December 2012, a drawn out search for the

newly created position of Inspector General came to a close when David Kimaiyo was

finally sworn into office.91 In spite of the failure to hold the police accountable for past

political violence, a halting pace, political wrangling at each step, and the remaining need

for full implementation, based on the five criteria above, Kenya’s coalition government has

achieved a medium-high degree of state SSR. Summarizing the coalition government’s

performance on police reform, Ong’wen, of the PRIC, asserted in 2011: “Quite a lot of

progress has been made. When the PRIC winds up, the reforms will have been put on a

strong path…it will be impossible to reverse them.”92

Ong’wen’s statement may prove overly optimistic, at least in the near term, as the

government and police in Kenya have a ways to go in translating significant progress on

establishing a legal and institutional foundation for reforms into a professional and effective

police service. As noted by Kimaiyo and Ong’wen, the police are perennially underfunded

and remain severely hampered by a lack of operational, logistical, and human resources.93

As outlined above, reforms remain anathema to many within the senior police leadership.

Moreover, several recent events suggest that formal institutional reforms have yet to

adequately change police behavior in practice, including alleged abuses of ethnic Somalis in

the Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi and other areas, failure to contain clashes in the Tana

Delta region, and an embarrassing operation in the Suguta Valley in which forty two police

were killed.94 Indeed, it is worrisome that the ultimate short-term test of these reforms,

national elections, are scheduled to take place mere months after many of the new

institutions and oversight mechanisms became operational. Furthermore, although progress

has been made on the state side of the SSR equation, such reforms have as of yet had almost

no impact on curbing informal security arrangements and the practice of militia politics, i.e.

in demobilizing political gangs and militias—the main protagonists of political violence in

Kenya, as discussed below.95 Despite several setbacks and considerable remaining obstacles

to full implementation, after decades of politicization, legal and institutional structures are

now in place to engender lasting and tangible police reforms in the medium to long term in

Kenya.

Security Sector Intransigence

There are varying reasons why security leaders in both Kenya and Zimbabwe remain so

obdurately opposed to reform. Three main reasons explain why the chiefs have fought so

vigorously to stymie reforms in Zimbabwe. First, they fear that reforms will jeopardize their

access to political power and patronage networks, which have been their primary source of

wealth. A leading civil society figure in Zimbabwe maintained that security leaders are

against reforms because “they want to protect what they have gained, it’s about their




economic gains.”96 Second, and along the same vein, security chiefs are worried that reforms

will expose them to prosecutions for past human rights violations. A Deputy Minister and

Member of Parliament argued that security chiefs “do not want to retire because a lot of

them committed atrocities” and are scared for their lives.97 Thirdly, the security chiefs

genuinely believe the narrative of patriotic history, the selectively nationalist ZANU-PF

narrative outlined above. As a Minister, Member of Parliament, and senior MDC-T official

argued, security leaders believe that they “…fought for the liberation of the people, and

therefore they are entitled to ruling the country. And they actually own the country, in a

way, in their minds.”98

If the police in Kenya do not enjoy a reciprocal relationship with the political sphere,

why are they against reform? Two main reasons, analogous to the ones in Zimbabwe,

explain the largely unreconstructed attitude of the Kenyan police leadership. Despite not

forging a political power base, the police have still benefitted from their position of power,

namely through endemic corruption. Transparency International has repeatedly found the

police to be the most corrupt institution in the country, with 59 percent of Kenyans reporting

to have encountered police bribery over the previous year.99 As Ong’wen asserted, the police

“now basically survive off corruption.”100 Many within the force see the potential for reforms

to restrict this source of survival, prompting attempts to stifle such efforts. Secondly, fueled

by the ICC charges against Ali, there are fears that reforms will bring accountability for past

crimes. Regarding changes within the police precipitated by the reform process, Ruteere

contends, “This change, there will come casualties of it. No question about it. So they [senior

police] really do not want this kind of change because there is no way they are going to

survive it.”101

Conclusion

Since the formation of each country’s power-sharing government, little if any security sector

reform (SSR) has been achieved in Zimbabwe, while meaningful, if incomplete, reforms

have been realized in Kenya. Myriad causal and intervening factors have played a role in

determining SSR outcomes in both cases, including the balance of power between reformers

and anti-reformers, varying levels of democratization, the relative traction of the

international community, the strength of domestic civil society, and the extent of previous

reform efforts. While these factors were considered throughout the analysis of each case and

were deemed as contributing to SSR outcomes, this paper has shown that understanding the

degree of the security sector’s political influence and the strength of the SSR content of the

agreements goes a long way in explaining the great deal of variation between the two cases.

While rigorous testing of other cases must remain a topic for further research, the above

findings may be useful in helping to explain the likely SSR outcomes of other unity

governments formed in contexts of low-grade electoral violence. The political influence and

SSR content variables interact in the cases of Kenya and Zimbabwe, with the degree of the

security sector’s political influence directly impacting the strength of the SSR content of the

agreement. The variables do not always necessarily vary in this fashion, however, as cases

may feature a moderate-low degree of political influence within the security sector and

weak or nonexistent SSR content, as appears to be case in Zanzibar in 2010.102 Conversely,

other cases—in part due to extensive international involvement in the peace process—may

exhibit a high degree of security sector influence and fairly strong SSR content. The closest

low-grade conflict case to exhibit characteristics similar to these appears to be Togo.103

42 | Noyes



Additionally, such an outcome would have been likely if a power-sharing deal had been

agreed to in Côte d'Ivoire in 2010 and, though not a case of low-grade conflict, appears to

have occurred in Burundi in 2004.104

In cases where the security sector’s influence is low and the SSR content strong, a high

degree of SSR is the likely outcome, as security leaders are unable to stifle reform and

domestic and international actors can use the agreement to drive reform, as seen in Kenya.

When the level of political influence is high and the SSR content weak, a low degree of SSR

is probable, as security leaders are able to veto reforms and internal and external forces are

unable to leverage the agreement, as evidenced by Zimbabwe (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Preliminary SSR Power-sharing Framework

SS

R C

on

ten

t

Strong

Weak

Low High

Political Influence

On the other hand, the findings from Kenya and Zimbabwe suggest that when the

security sector’s influence is relatively low and the SSR content weak or nonexistent, the

likely outcome is minimal movement on SSR, as security leaders are unable to frustrate SSR

but there are no reforms for domestic and international actors to leverage. The findings also

suggest that where the political influence of the security sector is fairly high and the SSR

content of the agreement strong, the process is likely to be halting and unpredictable, with

the abundant potential for reform tempered by security leaders’ ability to impede such

efforts. Again, although analyses of other cases must remain topics for further research, the

paper’s findings on Kenya and Zimbabwe may still be instructive to better understand the

likely SSR outcomes of other cases of unity governments formed in cases of low-grade

conflict. A starting point for further research and probing of the findings would be to plug

cases that are beyond the scope of this paper—such as Togo, Zanzibar, and Madagascar—

into the above preliminary framework and then test the hypotheses against evidence from

these additional cases.

This study has illustrated the importance of both the political influence and SSR content

variables in advancing SSR: lower degrees of influence are necessary but not sufficient

unless coupled with strong SSR content in the agreement. The implications of the findings

are clear. A low level of political influence within the security sector and robust SSR content

Zimbabwe 2008

Kenya 2008




in the agreement are the most favorable conditions for reforming the security apparatus.

Under such conditions, unity governments can generate significant opportunities for SSR.

Unfortunately, where such conditions prevail is usually where SSR is needed least. Kenya

may prove to be the exception in this regard, as a unique set of circumstances shaped a

unidirectional relationship between the police and the political sphere, making police

reforms essential but also plausible. Zimbabwe, on the other hand, demonstrates that, as one

might expect, where SSR is most desperately needed is where it is least likely to advance.

However, given the finding of this study that the content of the power-sharing agreement

has considerable potential to drive reform, negotiators would be wise to push vigorously for

concrete SSR content even in cases where security leaders possess medium-high degrees of

political influence. They should do so in hope that such content would enable pressure from

domestic and international actors to overcome the security sector’s protestations and force

members of the unity government to uphold their promises and implement SSR.

This paper argues that two main factors have shaped the SSR outcomes of the unity

governments in Kenya and Zimbabwe: the security sector’s degree of political influence and

the strength of the SSR content in the agreement. While this study has shown that the SSR

content of the agreement can play a fundamental role in advancing security reforms, there

are clearly limits to such catalytic potential. Post-conflict unity governments are extremely

volatile and fragile, with their outcomes dependent on a broad range of contingent factors

that are nearly impossible to forecast. Even if strong SSR guidelines are included in a deal,

the persistence of informal security arrangements, lack of political will, and other unforeseen

impediments—such as crises of governance or renewed conflict—may neuter their

potentially positive impact.

While Zimbabwe has achieved relative political and economic stability since the

formation of the unity government, the continued practice of security politics, lack of

meaningful state SSR, and the failure to demobilize extra-state militias has rendered the

country vulnerable to yet another violent election in 2013. Conversely, although Kenya has

made significant progress toward achieving security and other institutional reforms, little

has been done to disarm vigilantes and end the practice of militia politics. Indeed, recent

reports suggest that militias and gangs are in fact rearming, this time with AK-47 assault

rifles instead of bows and arrows and machetes.105 Mungiki, a central player in the 2007-08

post election violence, has also apparently regrouped ahead of elections, with ambitions of

reentering electoral politics as a formal party.106 This failure of the coalition government to

rein in privatized violence could very well lead to more electoral conflict in upcoming polls

scheduled for March 2013.

State security forces continue to play a critical and often deleterious role in conflict in

Africa, as illustrated by Côte d'Ivoire in 2010, where the security sector kept the incumbent

President, Laurent Gbabgo, in power even though he had lost an election. The bullet once

again defeated the ballot. While calls for power sharing proliferated after the disputed

election, the idea was ultimately jettisoned and Gbagbo was removed from office through a

combination of international and domestic force. Although the case of Côte d'Ivoire may

have slowed the wave of power sharing that has flowed across the continent in recent years

as a response to electoral deadlock, the lack of a viable substitute for ending violent conflict

guarantees that the model will continue to feature prominently in mediator’s toolkits. As

such, understanding the likely security reform outcomes of unity governments remains

more important than ever.

44 | Noyes



Notes

1 From herein referred to as Africa.

2 Mehler 2009a, p. 10.

3 Government of Kenya 2008a, CIPEV Final Report, pp. 384-85; Alexander and Tendi

2008, pp. 11-12.

4 Mueller 2008, pp. 187-89.

5 Lijphart 1990, pp. 494-5.

6 Rothchild and Roeder 2005, p. 30.

7 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 2008, p. 21.

8 Toft 2010, p. 4.

9 Hartzell and Hoddie 2007.

10 Toft 2010, p. 4.

11 Cheeseman 2011, p. 339.

12 Cheeseman and Tendi 2010, p. 205.

13 For a more comprehensive review of the power sharing literature see Mehler 2009b.


15 Bekoe 2012, p. 117; LeVan 2010, p. 43.

16 Chanaa 2002, p. 61.

17 Hills 2007, p. 403.

18 Cawthra and Luckham 2003, pp. 305-27.

19 Cheeseman and Tendi 2010, Cawthra and Luckham 2003, and Hartzell and Hoddie

2007.

20 George and Bennett 2005, p. 67.

21 For “process Tracing” see Ibid., p. 206.

22 Bekoe 2012, p. 119.

23 For a comprehensive analysis of power sharing in Togo and Zanzibar see Bekoe 2012.

24 Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace/Legal Resources Foundation 2002.

25 Chitiyo 2009, p. 8.

26 Alexander and Tendi 2008, p. 5.

27 Tendi 2010; Bratton and Masunungure 2008, p. 43.


29 Raftopoulos 2009, p. 215.

30 “Zimbabwe announces poll results,” BBC News, 2 May 2008.

31 Human Rights Watch 2011, p. 26.

32 Bratton and Masunungure 2008, p. 49.

33 Personal interview, Harare, Zimbabwe, 31 March 2011.


35 Personal interview, Executive Director of local research institute, Harare, Zimbabwe, 31

March 2011.

36 Human Rights Watch 2009, pp. 3-4; Alexander 2006, p. 186.

37 Government of Zimbabwe 2008.

38 “Zimbabwe’s generals will not surrender,” Guardian, 14 August 2008.

39 “Zimbabwe Generals’ Fears of Prosecution Threaten Deal,” New York Times, 14

October 2008.




40 Throup and Hornsby 1998, p. 31; Cheeseman and Tendi 2010, p. 216.

41 Adar and Munyae 2001.

42 Mueller 2008, p. 190.

43 Mueller 2011, p. 103.

44 Branch and Cheeseman 2008, p. 13.

45 Cheeseman 2008, p. 170.

46 For an overview of the Mungiki and the group’s role in Kenyan politics see Rasmussen

2010. Mueller 2011, p. 103.

47 Anderson 2002, p. 542; Mueller 2011, p. 103; Mueller 2008, pp. 187-89.

48 Mueller 2008, pp. 187-89.

49 Government of Kenya 2008a, CIPEV Final Report, p. 405-6.

50 Amnesty International 2013, p. 7.

51 Hills 2009, p. 244; personal interview, Hassan Omar Hassan, 4 April 2011, Nairobi,

Kenya.

52 Cheeseman and Tendi 2010, p. 213; Mueller 2011, p. 104.

53 This paper uses the term NA to refer to all agreements signed under the KNDR process.

54 Government of Kenya 2008b, NA.


56 Mehler 2009b, p. 470; Lindenmeyer and Kaye 2009, p. 23.

57 Personal interview, Nairobi, Kenya, 4 April 2011.

58 “Mugabe and generals playing last card,” Zimbabwe Mail, 3 June 2011.

59 “Zimbabwe President Mugabe's ZANU-PF rejects security sector reform,” Voice of

America, 1 May 2011.

60 “Mugabe’s grip on defence forces main problem in power talks,” Daily Nation, 20

December 2009.

61 International Crisis Group 2010, p. 11.

62 Personal interview, Harare, Zimbabwe, 1 April 2011.

63 “Zimbabwe’s constitutional reform to challenge Mugabe’s powers,” Mail and Guardian,

7 February 2013.

64 Dzinesa 2012.

65 Chitiyo 2009, p. 38; personal interview, Harare, Zimbabwe, 29 March 2011.


67 Personal interview, Minister, Member of Parliament, and senior MDC-T official, Harare,

Zimbabwe, 1 April 2011.

68 For an informal network analysis of Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government see Kriger

2012.

69 “Robert Mugabe Hounds Rivals in Zimbabwe, Parties Say,” New York Times. 4

November 2011; “Soldiers Deployed in Matabeleland,” Daily News, 20 March 2011.

70 “Zimbabwe government to gazette human rights commission bill,” Africa Legal Brief, 13

May 2011.

71 Human Rights Watch 2011, p. 4.





http://www.dailynews.co.zw/news/53-top-story/1922-soldiers-deployed-in-matabeleland.html

46 | Noyes




77 Ibid.


79 “Annan urges faster Kenya reforms,” BBC News, 10 April 2009.

80 “U.S. slaps travel ban on senior Kenyan official,” Reuters 26 October 2009; “UK pledges

Kenya reforms support,” Daily Nation 28 May 2010; United Nations 2009.



83 Government of Kenya 2010.

84 For an overview of all five bills see International Crisis Group 2013, p. 30. For a detailed

review of legislation passed see Amnesty International 2013, pp. 8-11.

85 International Crisis Group 2013, pp. 30-31.

86 Ibid, p. 31; Amnesty International 2013, p. 9.


88 Cheeseman and Tendi 2010, pp. 223-24.

89 “ICC charges four over Kenyan vote violence,” Al Jazeera, 14 March 2012.

90 “Kenya police bosses moved in sweeping changes,” KBC News, 8 September 2010.

91 International Crisis Group 2013, p. 31.


93 Personal interviews, Nairobi, Kenya, 8 April 2011.

94 Amnesty International 2013, pp. 20-23.

95 For a discussion on how formal institutions in Kenya have the potential to be

undermined by informal and personal rule, see Kriger 2011, pp. 100-02.




99 Transparency International 2008, pp. 16-19.



102 Mpangla 2006, p. 63-76; “Zanzibar approves power-sharing in referendum,” VOA, 1

August 2010.

103 Toulabor 2008; Government of Togo 2006.

104 Vandeginste 2009; Cheeseman 2011.

105 Mueller 2011, p. 106.

106 Rasmussen 2013.

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Personal Interviews

Deputy Minister and Member of Parliament of Zimbabwe. 2011. Harare, 30 March

(transcripts in author’s possession).

Executive Director of leading civil society organization in Zimbabwe. 2011. Harare, 1 April


Executive Director of local research institute in Zimbabwe. 2011. Harare, 31 March


Hassan, Omar Hassan. 2011. Former Commissioner, Kenya National Commission on

Human Rights (governmental body), Nairobi, 6 April (transcripts in author’s possession).

Kagwe, Tom. 2011. Member of the Board of the Government of Kenya’s Independent

Policing Oversight Authority and Deputy Executive Director, Kenya Human Rights

Commission (nongovernmental organization), Nairobi, 6 April (transcripts in author’s

possession).

Kimaiyo, David. 2011. Inspector General of the National Police Service of Kenya, former

Director of Kenya National Focal Point on Small Arms and Light Weapons, Ministry of State

for Provincial Administration and Internal Security, Office of the President, former Senior

Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations, Nairobi, 8 April (transcripts in

author’s possession).

Local journalist and senior staff member at leading civil society organization in Zimbabwe.

2011. Harare, 29 March (transcripts in author’s possession).

Member of Parliament of Zimbabwe, Member of Home Affairs and Defence Parliamentary

Portfolio Committee. 2011. Harare, 31 March (transcripts in author’s possession).

Minister, Member of Parliament of Zimbabwe, and senior MDC-T official. 2011. Harare, 1

April (transcripts in author’s possession).

Mohochi, Samuel. 2011. Managing Partner, Mohochi and Co. Advocates, former Executive

Director of Independent Medico-Legal Unit, a nongovernmental human rights organization

in Kenya, Nairobi, 4 April (transcripts in author’s possession).

Mpyisi, Kenneth. 2011. Director, Institute for Security Studies-Kenya, Nairobi, 7 April


Ndubi, Haron. 2011. Executive Director, Haki Focus, a nongovernmental human rights

organization in Kenya, human rights lawyer, participated in the Waki Commission, Nairobi,

7 April (transcripts in author’s possession).

Ong'wen, Odour. 2011. Member, Government of Kenya’s Police Reforms Implementation

Committee, Nairobi, 8 April (transcripts in author’s possession).

Ruteere, Mutuma. 2011. Director, Centre for Human Rights and Policy Studies, former Head

of Research at the Kenya Human Rights Commission, Nairobi, 4 April (transcripts in

author’s possession).

Senior official in the Office of the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. 2011. Harare, 1 April


52 | Noyes



Senior official in the Office of the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. Harare, 29 March


Documents

Securing Reform? Power Sharing and Civil-Security ...asq.africa.ufl.edu/files/Noyes-V13Is4.pdf · expansive power-sharing literature examine outcomes other than reignited conflict—such